U.S. Department of Education
Organization
Abstract
The U.S. Department of Education is responsible for developing policies regarding the educational matters concerning schools and colleges, in the U.S. Being a public agency, the Department of Education operates through fundamentals different from those of private organizations. A State agency is different through a private organization in the following ways such as a shorter time perspective of meeting goals, more turnover, conflicts regarding the agencies goals and the media plays an important role in making the policies work. The public organizations face many problems that stem of from the constraints on HR department, the conflicts about the goal to be achieve along with inter and intra-agency conflicts.
In this research, the problem faced by the U.S. Department of Education would be discussed in detail along with its impact on the organization. As a member of the policy team, I would present a detailed plan on how to overcome the dysfunction with the help of organizational and human resource theories.
Introduction to US Department of Education and its Goals
The U.S. Department of Education mission is to prepare the students for facing the global competition by enhancing the education and promoting student achievement. The goals of the US Department of Education include (Ancess, 2000)-:
1. To ensure that by 2020, America would be once again restored as the world’s leader proportion of college graduates.
2. To improve the number of children completing their high school education and the rate of educational attainment and college completion.
3. To increase the percentage of middle-aged population (25-to-34 years) who gain associate degrees.
4. To increase the number of students who attain a bachelor’s degree in the span of six years.
5. To increase the number of students of gain higher education and attain an associate certificate or degree in the span of three years.
6. To spread the adult education and increase the number of adults that obtain high school credentials.
7. To provide safety for students while on their school or college campus.
The day to day work of the U.S. Department of Education and the performance of the staff on a daily basis would be measured through the following goals-:
1. To provide post secondary education, adult education and career technical education by increasing the number of colleges, the access to colleges, improving the standards of higher education and providing life-long opportunity for youth and adults to learn and gain education (Ancess, 2000).
2. For increasing the number of elementary and secondary school students who have a college and career by improving the system’s capability to deliver better classroom instruction with help of more rigorous academic standards (Ancess, 2000).
The Problem Faced By The U.S. Department of Education
The U.S. Department of Education is a State Agency and is plagued by many problems which most public organizations faces. Internal conflicts and Intra-agency conflicts along with conflicts regarding the goals of the organization have become an integral part of the organization (Baker et al, 2006). Currently, the organization is facing problems in meeting out its National Outcome Goals due to the above mentioned problems. Let us now discuss in detail the problems faced by the U.S. Department of Education-:
1. Most of the problems faced by the U.S. Department of Education completely attributed to the budget and how to best allocate the Government’s money to the various states for supporting the education programs and policies (Tompkins, 2005). The battle for coming out accurate data and statistics regarding the actual picture of education in the U.S., is always on.
2.Another major problem is the internal conflicts between the employees regarding the goals of the agency and which outcomes to be given priority over others. Because of the problems between the employees, the agency is unable to meet its goals and objectives in the required time-frame. Most of the policies developed by the companies fail to achieve the desired outcome in the given time . This is creating a huge negative impact on the overall educational standards in the US
The U.S. Department of Education is accused by many teachers and schools and even the opposition as a highly bureaucratic agency which increasingly fails to achieve its outcomes and does not improve the educational standards in the country (Tompkins, 2005). On the contrary, its bureaucracy has only helped in creating fads between the department and the actual schools and teachers. The sole aim of these fads is to miscalculate the taxes and increase the budget. The current budget of the U.S. Department of Education is approximated to be $68.1 million (Tompkins, 2005).
The No Child Left Behind Law by the U.S. Department of Education significantly expanded the federal government’s interference with the schools and teachers. This law was also named the No Federal Bureaucrat Left Behind Law because it led to the federal bureaucrats trying to fulfill their own personal and political goals rather than fulfilling the goals if education.
The result of all this federal bureaucracy is that the educational standards have worsened in the nation along with more and more teachers leaving their jobs. In addition, a large number children and students are unable to complete their college degrees and fail to have a satisfying career (Baker et al, 2006).
The Problem of U.S. Department of Education Being Unconstitutional
The U.S. Constitution does not lists the Department of Education as a constitutional body. This is why the federal bureaucrats in the department cannot be expected to make curriculum and polices that can fulfill the educational standards required by the nation.
The Recommendations to Solve Organizational Issues
Regulating the Human Relations Department (Human Relations Theory)
The U.S. Department of Education is a public organization and one of its major problem is a weak and mismanaged Human Resource Department. Any public agency needs good employees that work hard, not only for their own profit, but also for the benefit of the public. For the recruitment, staffing and regulations of such employees a robust and well-defined Human Resource Department is absolutely mandatory.
According to the Human Relations Theory, the employees within any large-scale agency should be regulated by a department of people who specifically look towards the needs of the employees along with making rules and regulations for the working standards of the employees (Glick, 1985).
A major issues that plagues the U.S. Department of Education are the federal bureaucrats who fail to align their personal goals with agency’s goals and hence fail to give the desired output (Glick, 1985). There are a lot of internal conflicts amongst the employees, who each seem to have a different understanding of the goals of the U.S. Department of Education. This makes it impossible for them to work towards fulfilling the aims of the various policies because they are not clear with their own responsibilities and goals.
In order to regularize the employees and bureaucrats at the US Department of Organization, a few planning activities would be undertaken for investigating the problems at each level of the hierarchy.
1. Recruitment and Staffing-: One of the main reasons why the U.S. Department of Education was unable to meet their goals and objectives was the agency’s failure to a develop a proper process for recruiting new staff. The bureaucrats find themselves place in the agency through contacts and the quality of the staff and the employees had been seriously affected.
In fact, many employees were recruited without any supervision from the HR Department which significantly reduced the quality of employees (Glick, 1985). Upon complete evaluation of the overall recruiting and staffing process, the following changes are recommended-:
A recruitment cell within the HR Department whose sole focus would be to select the right candidate for the right position. The method for the recruitment of the employees are of the utmost priority. The employees recruited should be undergone a through routine before being recruited.
2.Employee Goal Settings-: This is a very important role of the Human Resource Department. In the U.S. Department of Education most employees are not clear about their organizational responsibilities and goals and tend to shift towards setting up their own goals. This gives rise to a greater conflicts between the employees who take upon themselves to decide what goals the agency should fulfill.
Thus, a robust HR department is needed to make the employees understand their distinct roles within the organization during their induction and orientation period with the agency. The employees should be given a clear set of goals to fulfill in a particular time frame.
In addition, the employees should be subjected to regular and periodic check-ups to check whether they are fulfilling their organizational duties or not.
3.Promoting Harmony Between Employees-: One of the major problems of the U.S. Department of Education is that the bureaucrats sitting at the topmost positions do not work in collaboration with each other and each one tries to put forward their own personal goals. Thus, the role of the HR department is here to promote harmony and collaboration between the employees. This is important to maintain that the top-level employees should work in complete collaboration with each other so that they can clearly identify their responsibilities and share a common vision of the responsibilities of the agency on the whole.
The Principal Agent Model
The principal agent model is based on the structural approach for the administration of large scale organizations. The U.S. Department of Organization is a large scale agency which needs to be re-modeled through the structural approach in order to improve the efficiency of operation.
According to the principal agent model the U.S. Department of Education should have an hierarchical structure which means that there should be a top-to-down delegation of authority. The Principals are the agents who are the policy makers and develop and design policies (Banks et al, 2006). The U.S. Department of Education is currently faced by the problem of extreme bureaucracy with employees at all levels trying to fulfill their own distinct goals. Once the principal agents are identified they would have the topmost authority to make the policies and no other employee in the organization should be given the authority to make decisions regarding the policies.
The Agents are those employees who are responsible for actually acting upon the laws and making sure that the agencies follow all the laws and policies advised by the Principals. This helps creating regulation amongst the employees regarding the proper fulfillment of the policy goals (Banks et al, 2006).
The Agencies are the separate bodies that are governed by the policies and laws made by the U.S. Department of Education. The schools and colleges are the agencies of the Department of Education and are expected to follow the curriculum and policies set up by the Principals at the U.S. Department of Education (Weiss, 2010).
However, it is to be mentioned here that even in the Principal-Agent Model it is important to remember that issues like Shirking can come out. Shirking occurs when the Agents start taking actions that are not in-line is the policies and goals set up by the Principals. To avoid shirking contracts are signed between the principals and the agents in which it is specified that neither one can act against the conditions set-up in the contract.
Conclusion: Why is it important to Follow the Recommendations
The U.S. Department of Education is currently at a stage where it faces huge criticisms from the government, the schools and teachers and the students. The state of education in the nation has been on constant decline even after the federal government took the regulation of educational policies in its hand. Most of the goals of the Department of Education are unmet.
Increasing number of students are leaving their college education in middle due to unavailability of proper policies. Then private schools and colleges do not focus on providing high-standard education to the students and instead, focus on their own personal gains. This has led to more and more students ending up with valueless degrees and certificates and incomplete knowledge (Banks et al, 2006). The high level of bureaucracy has led to the teachers being unsatisfied in their jobs and switching to other more promising careers.
Education is the fundamental building block of any country. The U.S. is the world’s most powerful country yet, its educational resources and standards are depleting day by day. The recent research and surveys clearly represent that the number of children who do not have access to proper elementary and secondary education has increased. This is mainly because the U.S. Department of Education is run by the federal government and the federal bureaucrats have made education more of a business for themselves. The privatization of schools and colleges has also led to degradation in the standards of education in the country.
Thus, it is important to implement the above mentioned policies and recommendations in order to improve the overall educational condition in the students. If not implemented, the lack of proper educational policies can lead the country to an unavoidable knowledge catastrophe.
References
Ancess, J. (2000). The reciprocal influence of teacher learning, teaching practice, school restructuring, and student learning outcomes. Teachers College Record 102 (3): 590–619.
Baker, D. B., J. T. Fouts, C. A. Gratama, J. N. Clay, and S. G. Scott. (2006). The Need to Regulate : U.S. Department of Education. Seattle: Fouts and Associates
Banks, J., K. Au, A. Ball, P. Bell, E. Gordon, K. Gutiérrez, S. Heath, C. Lee, Y. Lee, J. Mahiri, N Nasir, G. Valdés, and M. Zhou. (2006). Learning in and out of school in diverse environments: Life-long, life-wide, life-deep. Seattle: NSF LIFE Center and University of Washington Center for Multicultural Education.
Glick WH. (1985). Conceptualising and measuring organizational and psychological climate: Pitfalls in multi-level research. Academy of Management Review, 10, 606-616.
Tompkins, Jonathan R. (2005). Organization theory and public management .
Weiss, J. (2010). U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top Assessment.
